A Decade of Labor

“Labor”, 60 x 60 inches (approximate). Acrylic, dirt, dust, and shoe prints on plastic sheeting.

This drop cloth has traveled with me through 5 different workspaces, witnessed seasons of my life, and served as collector of the drips and overflow marks of hundreds of artworks (I really wish I had kept count of them all).

On Labor Day I reflected on the 10 years since I first picked up a paintbrush - and I thought about actions that go unseen and unquantified.

Labor gives form to growth and creation, and is inherently valuable in its own existent state, not just as a kind of supporting player. Acts of process are not simply means to an end; they radiate their own meaning.

The writer Ross Gay describes how his writing reveals his growth process: “Instead, it could be about leaving an artifact of my thinking and making that as beautiful as possible,” he says. “But ultimately, [I wanted to see] if there was some way to make the residue of my thinking available . . . the residue of my thinking also being the evidence of my changing.”

Considering that notion, I was struck by the inherent beauty and narrative revealed in a residual vestige of labor.

My creative process is ever-evolving and built on rituals, and I think it would feel significant to start with a fresh new drop cloth on Labor Day while gazing - with gratitude - on the marks of the former.

As the backdrop to painting after painting - endpoints that emerge from its continually layered base - the cloth is itself a presence of process. Evidence of hand in the form of dirt, shoe prints, and paint outlines on the surface, it represents, for me, a priceless personal history.